Hazardous Waste Enforcement
Case of Timothy O’Leary According to the article by Kloosterman, one of the latest waste dumping cases in Michigan happened in Muskegon when a man, Timothy O’Leary, added hazardous wastes into the wastewater system (2014). The law breaker was charged with a felony violation of the federal legislation. The act of O’Leary has potential to be punished by two years in jail and up to 25 thousand of fines. The offender avoided court after was released on bond, but was finally arrested at a pro-environment conference (Kloosterman, 2014).
Discussion of the Case
The petroleum contact water, which was mixed by O’Leary with Muskegon County Wastewater system, is considered to be hazardous waste dumping. According to section 3109 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, such prohibited act as committed by O’Leary can be qualified as felony connected with discharging contaminants into state waters (Department of Environmental Quality, 2013). The maximum imprisonment, in this case, is 5 years, if the court would find serious endangerment to the public health, in other case imprisonment is 2 years. Since petroleum contact water is only dangerous to aquatic life the offended is likely to receive not more than 2 years. In case of the fine, it can vary from 2,5 thousand to 25 thousand. In this case the punishment is adequate in terms of imprisonment, which discourages individual to take responsibility for the waste dumping at their own responsibility without engaging the company they work for. As for the monetary punishment, I think that even 25 thousand is not appropriate in this case.
O’Leary worked for Environmental Waste and Recovery Service Inc., which should be also involved in the punishment of this violation. If the violation was a part of the company activity, then the company can get out of the punishment easily and economically. As stated by Fiorino, companies can spend significant amounts of money on lawyers and such workers as O’Leary, but very little sums for creating good environment solutions (2006). I think that this economic approach to waste management by the companies should be addressed to make risk of violation case too costly to ignore.
References
Fiorino, D. J. (2006). The new environmental regulation. Mit Press.Department of Environmental Quality,. (2013). Michigan Environmental Crimes Handbook. Detroit: Department of Environmental Quality.
Kloosterman, S. (2014). DNR: Man dumped hazardous waste with wastewater in Muskegon, faces felony charge. MLive.com. Retrieved 18 June 2015, from Download Full Essay Show full preview
